The government’s procurement of additional cross-channel ferry services has already led to the collapse of a contract with the ferry-less Seaborne Freight, and cost the taxpayer £33m for a settlement with Eurotunnel.

Seaborne Freight had its deal cancelled after the Irish company backing it pulled out.

Meanwhile, Eurotunnel sued the government because it had not been considered for a contract.

It argued that unlike Seaborne, it has actually run a cross-Channel ferry service (MyFerryLink, which closed in 2015) and should have been approached.

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Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has been heavily criticised for the Seaborne deal, which would have been worth £13.8m.

A report in February by the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed that the deals with DFDS, Brittany Ferries and Seaborne Freight, worth more than £100m, contained no provision for the start date to be delayed beyond 29 March.

But a Whitehall source said the contingency sailings had to be ready for the original Brexit date, and referred to the possibility of further payments as “the cost of keeping no-deal on the table”.

The NAO also said that the cancellation of all three contracts prior to the end of March would incur a maximum termination charge of £56.6m.

Brittany Ferries said it had planned 20 additional weekly sailings – the equivalent of 2,000 nautical miles – employed extra staff, and moved 20,000 passenger bookings to accommodate the Department for Transport (DfT).

“The new schedule cannot now be changed, even as an extension to Article 50 [meaning Brexit is delayed] seems likely,” it added in a statement.